Vison of Life...It speaks about my views towards what's happening around us, though many of the things represents Pune, a becoming Metro in Maharashtra,India yet most of us live in similar city life. In city day to day life all we face is problems around us; from traffic to water to slums to power supply & many more, but who has solutions? That's why the name
Vison of Life!
Sanjay Deshpande

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Understanding Eco Tourism!

The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago... had they
happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands…Havelock Ellis

Recently I went through an article about Eco Tourism & its ill effect on
the entire nature especially wild life! It was indeed very touchy & well
covered thoughts about the impact of the entire tourist & their related
activities on the surrounding natural habitat, but I will say we haven't yet
understood the word Eco Tourism in real term! Its like the quote said, with
which most of the environmentalists will agree yet we are seeing the wrong side
of the coin is what I feel! First of all analyze that what ever we are doing is
it really giving justice to the term Eco Tourism! Well just to go & enjoy
our self on the back-ground of nature isn't Eco Tourism & that's what is
happening right now here in our country! May it be Mr. Amitabh Bachhan appealing
for Kutch Dessert in Gujarat Tourism advertise or may it be an Announcer
assuring “Bagh Darshan” ( Tiger sighting) in Madhya Pradesh Tourism advertises!
All we sale is nature & what most of the tourist will like to see &
nothing to conserve it, is a fact. But isn't it wrong to tag the entire concept
of Eco tourism as bad business than correcting our own steps?

In our country unfortunately making money is considered as serious crime &
that's the main crux! When we say some thing as sustainable then it does
include sustainable financially also & in Eco Tourism also there will be
some factors where money is bound to get generated may it be resort owners or
tour operators! If there is no proper infrastructure there won’t be tourist is
a truth! I am from area close to Melghat, i.e. Northern Vidrbha forest which
lays in Amraoti/ Akola districts of Maharashtra. Undoubtedly the best forest we have of Sag (teak)
& land of tigers & many other species with vast area under the belt
joining two states i.e. Maharashtra & Madhya Pradesh. Yet its with zero
infrastructure except some resorts in Chikhaldara (a central place), with no Gypsy’s
or fixed routes of travel within the forest, there isn’t any means of income
available to local tribal i.e. Korku's & result is in last20 years immense
forest cutting has happened as well once the tigers used to be roams freely all
over nearly 2000 sq km, now you have to search for them or even sighting of
chitals is getting rare! Very high rate of malnutrition amongst the tribal
infants & poverty & illiteracy is all over the place. Still in this era
the local weekly bazaars operates on bar-trading as money is scarce so people
believe in commodity exchange. There isn't a petrol pump in hundreds of km leave
apart good medical or educational infrastructure. Neither good doctors nor
good teachers are ready to come here & work, spare a few NGO's! All this I don’t
say because of lack of eco tourism but some where the facts remains as no one
comes there, no one is interested in improving the area.

Eco tourism is never meant to harm the environment in any way but its in fact
has to be developing an infrastructural support to the environment as well its
conservation. The examples which the writer has given about the road
construction in Gujrat, is the faulty execution of the wrong plan. Even in USA
highways have been planned & executed through the famous Redwood forest
where trees are over thousand years old & yet conserved properly. At one
place they have cut the road through the huge steam of a redwood tree named “General
Sherman" & it has become the center of attraction of all tourists. And
yet no NGO or any conservationists have taken any objection, because it’s the
way they have executed the entire activity. In USA week-end hiking or traveling in
natural habitats is most common but the restrictions during such touring are
extreme & the punishments are even more extreme if you fail to follow them!
There are wardens not just in forests but even at natural habitats like water
falls or mountains, who regularly rounds the terrain & they are them selves
well trained as well armed to face any emergency or control the miss behavior
of the tourists. In many States they have authority to arrest as well fine the
tourists if found misbehaving with the nature & there is no body above the
law, may it me some ministers family or any VIP traveling as a tourist, law is
same for all & executed accordingly.

Even
eastern countries like Malaysia
have made great marketing of rain forests & converted them in a world wide
popular tourism spot without harming the core of rain forest. And the money
generated is being utilized for conservation of rain forests as well the tribes
residing in that zone. We need to study the Eco tourism in other developed
countries & how they control the ill effects of the same. In underdeveloped
African countries also you are allowed to buy a piece of forest & convert
them in ranches & resorts without touching a single tree & yet they
have five star luxuries over there at such resorts. Such facilities which have
made millions of foreigners to visit African forests which once considered as
impossible to explore by any human being, leave apart outsiders of
sophisticated world!

Most of us know the Do's & Don’ts while traveling in Eco sensitive areas
but we all know that in our country there is no one to act firmly to stop us if
we keep on doing even the “Don’ts " & can get away with such acts! It’s
obvious that if we want more people to get exposed to such places we need
infrastructure like roads & vehicles for the same. And there is always a
balancing way to do it. The fact though are different, we have build High-ways
& Rail-ways through the forests without keeping proper crossings for the
animals living in surrounding forests. We didn't study the natural passes which
the animals were using for years & cut through them causing equal or may be
more deaths occurring of wild animals in road / rail way crossing than by the
poachers! We don’t have proper signage for such spots to avoid accidents &
a team backing to control these signage are being followed by the tourists. We
allow building the resorts amidst the buffer areas of reserved forests or right
in heart of some river bed & don't take any cognizance of the damage it
makes on surroundings. Our norms of garbage as well waste water generation
& treatment we can’t even follow & control in Metros so to follow the
same in remote places is impossible. Though it’s very easy to lay a policy for
the same & see that it’s strictly or else shut down the concerned resort. Any
business generating money in Eco Tourism has to ensure employment of local
peoples to lift their life style & contribute some part of their earnings
in building social infrastructure in surrounding area. Taxation should be made
accordingly for such business activities. Like in forests like Kanha spread
over 1600 sq km, you don’t find a single plastic waste of water bottle such is
the sensitiveness of the entire system towards the forest! Why this can’t be
replicated all such tourism places & if Kanha can maintain it within the
forest why can’t they have proper control on growth of resorts in buffer area? Our
Tourism Development Corporations are interested mostly in acquiring the best
places at such location & then lease it to private agencies & make
money out of it. They can easily give the responsibility of controlling any
activity which will hamper the nature. There should be single authority which
will control any such development & for that first mark all such spots in
the country may it be Forests or natural habitat like Kas platue at Satara or Valley of Flowers! Also
efforts should be made to make affordable accommodations like youth hostels at
such places. This will make Eco Tourism viable for even a common man which
right now is restricted to mostly upper class only!
Joke is right now all the departments are making money out of Eco tourism yet
no one is ready to take or has been given the sole responsibility of looking
after the damage these activities are doing on the environment in itself! This
is the defeat of Eco Tourism!

Actually the term includes not just promoting the
tourists & make money but to utilize this money generated for the
conservation of local people, trees, animals & entire surrounding by way of
various activities which may be social, cultural as well infrastructural! This
is how we should look at the term instead just blaming some people who may not
be actually responsible for the damage directly it may appear but it’s the
indirect fronts which are more important than the on face agencies!

2 comments:

We have a travel website which is a Maharashtra travel Guide in which we have a page for Chikhaldara with lot of information regarding the place. We are trying to include info regarding Chikhaldara Hotels.

We also have a page for blogs on Chikhaldara. Do let us know if you would like to feature your blog in the Chikhaldara Blogs page in puneritraveller.com.